Ontario's Excess Soil Rules: Testing, Tracking and the Registry

How it was phased in

O. Reg. 406/19 was finalized in December 2019 and brought in over several years. Reuse rules, risk-based standards and waste designation provisions took effect on 1 January 2021. Testing, tracking and registry requirements followed on 1 January 2022, with the Excess Soil Registry going live shortly before. The Province paused parts of the second phase in April 2022, moving certain requirements to 1 January 2023. Restrictions on depositing excess soil at landfilling sites formed the final phase, and the date for that prohibition has since moved again.

What it means on a project

For any project generating enough excess soil to be caught by the regulation, the work is front-loaded. Before soil moves, a qualified person oversees an assessment of past uses, a sampling and analysis plan, a soil characterization report and a destination assessment. Notices are filed in the registry. The soil then has to reach the destination that was declared.

This is why excess soil has become a schedule item rather than a line in a haulage quote. Engaging the qualified person late is the most common way projects lose weeks.

Where it connects to environmental site assessment

Soil characterization and a Phase 1 or Phase 2 ESA answer related but distinct questions. A Phase 2 asks whether contamination is present on the site; excess soil work asks whether the material being removed can lawfully go where it is proposed to go. On a redevelopment carrying both, sequencing them together saves duplicated drilling and laboratory cost.

Practical advice

• Identify early whether the volume and location bring the project within the regulation.
• Bring the qualified person in during design, not after excavation starts.
• Where a Phase 2 ESA is also required, plan the two investigations as one field programme.
• Confirm the current position on landfill deposit restrictions — this part has been amended more than once.